A catering business's profit margin is a month's event sales minus food, event staff, kitchen rent, transport, rentals and every other bill, divided by sales. For example, the calculator below opens with a caterer in US dollars: $45,000 of events in a month, 30% for food and disposables, 34% for chefs and servers, $2,500 for kitchen space and $8,000 for the van, rentals, insurance and the rest, with no delivery-app orders. Change it to a month of your own events to see what you really keep.
Part of the free Restaurant profit margin calculator.
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Your net margin
Example numbersFood, drink and labor together.
What you would keep if no order paid commission.
Delivery apps take $0 a month: 0% of the profit you would otherwise keep.
The same $0 of orders on your own ordering page, paying a 2.9% card fee ($0) instead of commission.
Compare with US restaurants
Move app regulars to your own ordering page
Make a Menuthere ordering page with your menu and a QR code. Orders on it pay 0% commission, so regulars who order direct leave you more.
Sales, food and labor as a share of sales, rent and other costs. Example numbers are filled in to start.
The share of sales that comes through the apps and their average commission. The calculator takes it off your margin.
See your margin with the apps and with the same orders coming direct, then copy the numbers for your partner or accountant.
Count event staff hours door to door
Catering wages run higher than most food service: private caterers in the US paid an average of $33,740 a year in 2024. Count prep, loading, travel, setup, service and clear-down for every event, not just the hours guests are eating, when you work out the labor %.
Keep rentals and disposables out of the food line
Chafing dishes, linens, plates and cutlery you hire for an event are not food. Put them in other costs, and charge them on the quote as their own line, so a large wedding with full rentals doesn't hide a thin margin on the food itself.
Run a busy month and a quiet month
For many caterers, work bunches into wedding season and the holidays. Enter one peak month and one slow month: your kitchen rent, insurance and van payments stay the same in both, and the slow month shows how much you need from the busy ones.
Questions owners ask
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Put your items on a Menuthere page. Customers pick, fill in their details and the order arrives on your WhatsApp. Free, with no commission.